Special Interest Groups

What are SIGs?

WCTRS encourages a continuous exchange between experts all over the world and in order to facilitate this exchange of ideas between researchers interested in the same topic area, Special Interest Groups (SIGs) have been created. To allow proper organisation and orientation, the WCTR is currently structured into nine topic areas which include a total of 39 session tracks. In the conference, each session track will consist of a series of sessions, each featuring several presentations. Poster sessions will be related to the defined session tracks. The SIGs manage one or more session tracks, but additionally they have a continuous scientific exchange in SIG meetings, helping organise seminars all over the world in cooperation with other international organisations.

The nine currently specified topic areas are:

A. Transport Modes: General

B. Freight Transport and Logistics

C. Traffic Management, Operations and Safety

D. Activity and Transport Demand

E. Transport Economics and Finance

F. Transport, Land Use and Sustainability

G. Transport Planning and Policy

H. Transport in Developing and Emerging Countries

I. Infrastructure Design and Maintenance

It is important to note that there are some cross-disciplinary topics in WCTR which are covered by several topic areas.

Public Transport, for example, is addressed in Topic Area A (papers related to air transport and rail transport), Topic Area C (papers related to operation, management and control of public transport systems), Topic Area D (papers related to travel behaviour and demand models for public transport), Topic Area G (papers related to planning and policy), and also Topic Area H (papers related to Developing and Emerging Countries).

Human Factors, another example, are also addressed in several topic areas, e.g. in Topic Area D (papers related to mobility behaviour), in Session Track C4 “Traffic Safety Analysis and Policy” (papers related to traffic safety), and others.

Environmental issues and sustainability are specifically addressed in Topic Area F, but such papers might also be allocated to those session tracks in line with the papers´ main focus and its specific field of application.

The Society will introduce new session tracks and even topic areas once important emerging themes are identified.